Suchitra Mattai @ Seattle Asian Art Museum

Suchitra Mattai’s exhibition at the Seattle Asian Art Museum plays with the tangible and intangible, softness and strength. Walking in, you’re greeted with a gloriously colorful sculpture that resembles a huge tent or caravan, topped with a fringe of gold tinsel. This is “Pappy’s House,” her recreation of her grandparents’ home in Guyana, built entirely from memory. Made of braided saris, it can’t be entered. That’s the point; like many memories, it’s vivid yet unreachable.

Mattai, born in Guyana and raised in Canada, pulls from her family’s history of migration and labor to create sumptuous, organic works often made with braided saris. In “Memory Palace,” the imagined interior of “Pappy’s House” spills across the gallery. Video “windows” cut into sari-covered walls show the Atlantic Ocean, linking her family’s personal stories to the larger legacy of migration from India to the Caribbean. Throughout the show, her color palette — sea blues, burnt orange, gold and blushing pinks — evokes warmth, nostalgia and much-needed beauty.

Mattai’s work is deeply rooted in domestic craft forms less commonly seen in major art museums such as sewing, beading and applique. But she’s all about reclamation. One standout piece is the reworked tapestry that lends its name to the title of the show: “She Walked in Reverse and Found Their Songs.” Inspired by a French Rococo painting, the tapestry has been significantly altered and embellished. The goddess Diana, protector of the enslaved, appears here with darkened hair and skin and in a glittering peach sari. Mattai calls her reworked tapestries “brown reclamation,” a powerful move for a delicate textile, but the whole show is about finding surprising new ways to highlight ancestral strength and beauty.

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